


Into The Past

by feelingtwofootsmall



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: First Kiss, Gen, M/M, Nick POV, POV First Person, fits into canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 05:37:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelingtwofootsmall/pseuds/feelingtwofootsmall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Reading over what I have already written, I see that I have remarked previously on the fact that Gatsby, unlike most men of his social stature, was always moving. By this I don’t mean that he moved from place to place with regularity the way Tom and Daisy seemed to, but rather that some part of him always stayed in discreet, perpetual motion— two fingers rubbing together in circles, one foot tapping. A distracted licking of the lips."</p>
<p>Nick remembers the one time Gatsby stood completely, utterly still.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into The Past

In reading over this manuscript I can see that I’ve included several passages which are not fit for and which I have no intention of releasing for publication; the instance I am about to outline is surely doomed to the same fate. However, I have found in my writing that any reminicenses of that awful, exhilarating summer are quite therapuetic to me, and this description is one thing which I feel I need to let go.

Reading over what I have already written, I see that I have remarked previously on the fact that Gatsby, unlike most men of his social stature, was always moving. By this I don’t mean that he moved from place to place with regularity the way Tom and Daisy seemed to, but rather that some part of him always stayed in discreet, perpetual motion— two fingers rubbing together in circles, one foot tapping. A distracted licking of the lips.

Before I get on with the story, however, I feel the need to add one more thing— that much of the dialogue I presented in these next few pages will differ somewhat from my published account. This, of course, cannot be avoided. None of these unpublished papers will see the light of day in my lifetime, I can be sure of that, but let it be known— if there are those after I am gone who care for Gatsby, and who unearth this horrible scrap— that my account here is the freshest, the most accurate. I cannot pretend to remember every word we said to each other, but if I leave out something of this tale in my true printing, please forgive me. I may be an honest man, one of the few I’ve ever known, but there are some things even an honest man cannot repeat truthfully.

Here, anyway, I have attempted to do so.

* * *

Gatsby’s one moment of extraordinary stillness occurred on that night, the last night— the horrible, endless night that followed the accident. After getting a taxi home, one that smelled unpleasantly like vomit and cough drops, I had tossed and turned all night in my small iron-framed bed. Unable to sleep, I was haunted by recurring visions of Myrtle— Myrtle dancing in her city apartment, Myrtle kissing her dog on the nose, Myrtle’s horrible, mutilated left breast flapping in the road, never to be touched by Tom again— and by worries of Gatsby. By that time I had ceased to feel any concern or even pity for Daisy and Tom— or Jordan for that matter. She was one of them, one of that group Gatsby would never truly be a part of, and I hated her for it. I hated all of them and their careless ways.

I allowed myself to soak in the feeling for several hours, reasoning that it would keep my eyes open and nightmare-free, but I think I would not have been able to sleep anyway. Something told me that Gatsby needed me.

It was nearly dawn, sometime between four and five in the morning, when I heard a car pull into Gatsby’s drive. I sat up, my bed creaking pitifully, and quickly dressed, letting myself out through the dark kitchen.

I found him sitting in a chair just inside, dark circles under his Nordic eyes. He looked up as I walked in unannounced, and answered the question I hadn’t asked.

"She came to her window once around four o’clock. Then she turned away and turned off the light."

So there had been no brutality on Tom’s part. I had known, as I saw them conspiring over their cold chicken hours earlier, that there would not be. I didn’t have the heart to say it to Gatsby though, not when he was staring at me like a man who sees his last chance slipping away from him. In a way, I suppose that’s exactly what was happening.

I coughed a bit nervously and said in what I hoped was a hopeful tone, “She may still come around tomorrow."

Gatsby nodded and loosened his tie, his long, restless fingers working on it as he answered me.

"Tomorrow," he said, and all the money in Daisy’s voice couldn’t have matched what I heard in that one word spoken by my friend. There was desperation, ever-glowing hope, a touch of ironic humor. I felt that Gatsby knew as well as I did exactly how much of a chance Daisy had of coming around tomorrow, but nothing could quench in him that spark of hope. There would always be a part of him that reached out for the green light, no matter how much fog or smoke was in the way....

In the moments following his quiet, almost confident repetion of my word, I was sure that I loved Gatsby with all my heart and soul. It was just as well, then, that the peculiar hope I loved so much was born out of love for my cousin— if it had not been, and Gatsby had been unattached, I think I might have had him right then and there. As it was, we searched his empty house for cigarettes, sifting through a surprising amount of dust, and as we smoked, he told me who he really was. He told me of James Gatz, the poor boy he had been, and of Dan Cody, his ticket to the world. I hope to record all of this information, as well as more details of that night, later on in what will be published, but not here— they do not have any place among these particular shadows.

At dawn the two of us found ourselves sitting quiety beside each other on his expansive deck, french windows thrown open behind us, watching the sun rise like a flaming yolk above the sound. Neither of us had said a word for several minutes —we had both fallen silent as dawn approached— and though my cigarette had been extinguished an hour beforehand, I could still taste it— dry, stale, and weirdly comforting in my mouth. I chanced a look over at Gatsby, and saw that he was worrying at his lower lip. It wasn’t a gesture of nervousness so much as the habit of movement I had already noted, and as I watched, he switched to tapping one ankles against the leg of his deck chair.

I smiled, knowing he wouldn’t look at me— his face was turned determinately toward East Egg, towards Daisy’s glittering palace. It was still too early in the morning to be able to discern any green light from her direction, but we both knew it was there. Despite that, and despite his own inclination for hope, I knew that the real attraction to the green light had been lost to Gatsby ever since that morning in my living room, when he had reunited himself with Daisy. I was surprised, then, when he turned to look back at me several minutes later, the sun just high enough in the sky that it glinted off his hair and made it shine like dull gold. I remember this well, because I had to suppress an intake of breath at the look of him— an exclamation of surprise at how, on this cool, revolting morning, he could still manage to look so fine. I remembered Daisy’s comment of the previous afternoon, the one that had alerted Tom of her love for Gatsby, and stayed silent. He spoke first, still squinting into my eyes in the new light.

"Are you going in to work today, old sport? How’s the bonds business, anyhow?" I sighed and rubbed my eyes tiredly with my fingertips— I felt as if I’d lived through another war— and avoided the question for several seconds as I contemplated how best two respond. He had already turned his gaze back to the sound when I answered.

"I think I will be going to the city, yes. I’ve been spending enough time off the job as it is." I choked out a laugh— “Don’t ask me how the business is, I’m failing horribly at it." Gatsby, fiddling with the signet ring on his finger, smiled briefly but wanly, looking disappointed in my answer and I wondered if my instinct had been correct, if he wanted me to stay with him until Daisy’s call. But he lapsed back into silence after this, rotating one of his feet unconsciously on its joint, and I looked out at the water. The private beach I had taken the liberty of using so often that summer was brightening faintly, appearing strangely alien in its lack of habitation. And out there, past the glittering sand, was the great sparkling sound— it could have been the entirety of the Atlantic Ocean for all its vastness that morning. As I watched a seagull skim above it, I felt no more capable of leaving Gatsby to traverse it than I would have of turning my neighbor in to the police— Still I told him, somewhat rhetorically, that I would leave on the nine o’clock train.

He must have heard me, but didn’t acknowledge it except for a quick deepening of the brow and a momentary lapse in the rotation of his foot. A few minutes later, he rose and invited me to join him for breakfast— not having eaten anything since lunch the day before, I readily agreed, and soon found myself eating at one end of his expansive dining room table, while Gatsby sat beside me at the head, neatly dissecting a fried egg and a piece of toast with his knife. I almost approached the topic of Daisy, but thought better of it— my own breakfast was getting cold, and besides, we had talked about her far enough.

When we had finished, and the shifty-eyed gardener had cleared our places, Gatsby heaved a deep sigh and looked towards me, the circles under his eyes only making him appear more handsome.

"Will you wait with me, old sport?" he asked uncertainly. “You haven’t got a train to catch for another hour at the least, and I would appreciate the company."

It sounded to me like he was trying to convince himself of a reason to keep me around, to justify his vague desire for company, but even so, I knew there was no way in the world I could refuse him. Despite the trouble I knew he could bring, I could not bring myself to leave Gatsby. So I nodded my agreement and watched that ecstatic, reassuring smile spread across his face, the one that I had only seen one other time in my life. The one that belonged to a demi-god, to a force of nature. The one that lit up Gatsby like Coney Island. We walked together back onto the porch, and settled wordlessly —for the moment— into our chairs.

Before I knew it, it was nine-thirty, and neither of us had moved. My train had left, but I didn’t mention it. The would be other trains, and there was only one Gatsby. The man himself was beside me, sitting in quiet companionship, and while I quietly berated myself for so lecherously enjoying his company, I had the queer feeling, brought in with the newly autumnal air, that it would very soon cease to matter how I viewed him. I knew almost immediately what the feeling was— I had read it described on the faces of men in books. It was the sudden, solid conviction of a man who somehow feels he has nothing more in the world to lose.

As the sun rose higher in the sky between my second and third missed trains, the gardener appeared at Gatsby’s elbow.

"I’m going to drain the pool, Mr. Gatsby." Gatsby looked at him balefully, rubbing his finger back and forth along the woodgrain of his chair, and I suppressed a smile.

"Not today," he said, and turned to address me apologetically. “You know I haven’t used that pool all summer, old sport?"

_Yes_ , I wanted to tell him, I know. _All those days out on your beach and not one glimpse of you. All those people at your parties pushing each other into the pool, and you were the one man who stayed dry_. Instead, I made to get out of my chair and remarked that I had only twelve minutes until the next train. At this less-than-confident proclamation, Gatsby’s eyes widened, and he stood as well. He still wore the pink suit of the night before, or least half of it, the jacket having been discarded when we had searched his cavernous, darkening house for cigarettes hours before. As I had noted earlier, he still appeared put-together, despite a flush across his cheeks and the stray lock of golden hair that fell across his forehead.

"Do you have to go?" he asked me, a note of anxiety creeping into his careful voice. Haltingly, before it seemed he could control himself, his hand reached out to touch the inside of my wrist and lingered there, fleetingly, against my pulse. It was the first time Gatsby had touched me that I truly felt him in it, and the difference sent a shudder through me. At this, he quickly withdrew his hand and straightened up, spots of color high on his cheekbones, in an obvious —and partially successful— attempt to regain his composure.

"I’m sorry, old sport. Of course you must go. Of course." On the contrary, I stayed put, and I looked back at him with no small amount of awe for some minutes, so that I feared it showed in my face. Here was Gatsby —Jay Gatsby, THE Gatsby— whom I had watched and disapproved of and loved for the whole of the summer, and he was all but begging me to stay. The wind blew a stray leaf between us, and I thought again of the decade ahead of me, the ghastly stretching years beginning with this fall, and I thought of the way Gatsby had looked at Daisy in the hotel room, like she had to convince not only Tom of their love, but him as well.

I looked at Gatsby, less than two feet away from me, and I felt that old conviction of having nothing to lose overpower me completely in the strong, early sun.

I stepped forward, and when I pressed my mouth against his, feeling for all the world as if my heart was going to burst, he went still.

There was no fidgeting, no tapping, no small bodily movements. Gatsby simply stood, his eyes looking somewhere behind me, towards the water, and allowed me to kiss him. I hardly dared to move myself, already consumed with the moment; it seemed he had even ceased to breathe. I saw the seagull alight on his wide, marble balcony and I thought, _how I envy you_ , I thought, _I am going to miss yet another train._

I leaned back, and his lips clung to mine of their own accord for one sticking second. Then we were again standing a foot apart, and still he had not moved. I felt my cheeks flush, but I said nothing. I knew then, and still know now, that an apology would have meant nothing, that I would not regret my actions as long as I lived.

After several moments, as I studied his face carefully for signs of disgust, Gatsby looked away from the water and met my eyes, beginning to rub his thumb against his index finger, which was curled, along with the rest of his hand, into a loose fist. I noted it.

"It’s ten minutes until my train," I said, feeling as though I were placing my words at the altar of an ancient god. Though his eyes, curiously unreadable, remained on mine, Gatsby made no sound or motion to confirm that he had heard me. I stepped to the side and made to walk past him, towards my own house. Once again, however, Gatsby’s hand shot out to touch my wrist, this time gently encircling it like a manacle— It was as warm and dry as his lips had been.

"Nick," he said, and I started, for Gatsby had called me by my own name only once that summer, “Nick…" To my surprise and delight, he said nothing else, and I made no attempt to escape. I searched his face for omens and came up dry, but in his eyes I saw loneliness, desperation, and a fleeting, lemon-yellow shred of hope; they seemed, in that second, as vast and ancient to me as those of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg.

"I’ll call you up," I said, picturing incense and vestal virgins with Daisy’s face, but I made no move. When Gatsby realized that I wasn’t going anywhere, his hand tightened on my wrist and I was pulled without warning into an embrace, my nose suddenly crushed into his shoulder. He held me with such a desperate strength that when Gatsby shuddered just once, I felt his entire body move against mine. I wrapped my arms around his waist, closed my eyes, and thought of nothing at all. When Gatsby began to release his grip, he didn’t move away, and his voice came floating into my ear like the sad smoke that follows a firework —“I suppose Daisy’ll call too?"— and just like that, we were once again standing apart from each other on his porch.

I shake my head even now to imagine how the scene would have appeared to an onlooker; probably as some bizarre kind of parting dance. But I understood him. No matter how many others Gatsby loved, or how much he loved them, he would be unable to let go of his golden dream until there was nothing whatsoever left of it. As long as there was a chance Daisy would call, there was no chance, however much he would have liked it, that Gatsby would give himself to another. I understood this, and it occurred to me that I should get on the next train— the bonds business was booming, and Gatsby was waiting for a telephone call that we both knew would never come. I reached out to touch him one last time and tucked the stray lock of hair back into place, already feeling an ocean growing between us. Through the fog and spray of it, I saw Gatsby’s hand lift up as though he was about to grab my arm one last time, but in another fraction of a second it was gone, vanished into the warm, pink depths of his pocket.

The sight of it nearly cracked my heart open.

* * *

Here I could write about our goodbyes, about what I shouted at him over the hedge as I was leaving. I could write here, one last time, about Gatsby’s smile. I will write about all of these things soon, and about what came after, but that is for another day when I am feeling strong and literary and can fit the appropriate metaphors into the right places. Right now, remembering the events I have described here, I feel only regret, and a deep sadness that threatens to undo me. I don’t, and never will, regret what transpired between the two of us that morning, and I have always been glad of what I shouted to him as I was leaving, but there is always the suspicion, ever-present in my mind, that had I only let another train go by— Still, I think all would not have been bliss. The East may now be haunted for me by the spirit of Gatsby and the feelings he provoked in me that summer, but Gatsby was then and would perpetually be haunted just as strongly, haunted by the last threads of his great dream.

As I sit here and think about that final morning, through all the sadness and desperation comes one conviction: Gatsby may ultimately have died for his dream, but I attained mine —however briefly— that morning on his porch, and I will continue to live in memory of it as long as my own memory endures.

**Author's Note:**

> So... this is my first fanfiction for The Great Gatsby, and it might be my last. I wrote at least two thirds of it around 2-3 in the morning, and woke up slightly pleased and slightly horrified by what I had found in my phone memos. I tried to make it fit into the book as much as I could. Even so, I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
